To dissolve, submerge, and cause to disappear the political or governmental system in the economic system by reducing, simplifying, decentralizing and suppressing, one after another, all the wheels of this great machine, which is called the Government or the State. --Proudhon, General Idea of the Revolution

Saturday, October 15, 2005

Richard K. Moore: Escaping the Matrix

For some time, Richard K. Moore has been sharing draft chapters of his manuscript Escaping the Matrix: How We the People Can Change the World with his email list. He's now got a draft of Chapter One online. It's a considerably fleshed out version of his amazing article "Escaping the Matrix." You can also find a lot of earlier drafts of other chapters if you check out his newslog archives for the past couple of years. For example, here's the table of contents of an earlier version with links to draft chapters.

After reading the first page on history titled: Apocolypse Now and moving on to: How the world works… it occurs to me to point out an obvious contradiction.

“The old, failed laissez-faire doctrine of the 1800s was reintroduced with the help of Milton Friedman's Chicago School of economics, and "less government" became the proud "modern" theme in America and Britain. Sensible regulations had restored financial stability after the Great Depression, and had broken up anti-competitive monopolies such as the Rockefeller trust and AT&T. But in the new matrix reality, all regulations were considered bureaucratic interference.”

As far as I am concerned - Laissez-faire does not exist and cannot exist when taxes are involuntary. If the author doesn’t understand this, then, he is suffering from the grips of falsehood - in my opinion; he has swallowed the wrong pill.

It appears as if the perspective being told is the gentle version of despotism; popular prosperity forced into effect by sensible regulations.

I am interested in reading more but the righting appears to be on the wall on this one.

“Government policies had always been criticized in the media, but the institution of government had always been respected--reflecting the traditional bond between capitalism and nationalism.”

‘had always’ appears to miss something important concerning U.S. history and many writers confound this issue. Society or Capitalism or Socialism is all voluntary or it is government either good or bad. Tradition has nothing to do with it and neither does nationalism. Tradition is either good tradition like ‘do no harm’ or it is bad tradition like kill all Mormons, Indians, Rebels, insurgents, or whatever. Nationalism is either good like the Nationalism exposed in the Declaration of Independence or it is bad Nationalism like the Nationalism exposed in the U.S. Constitution. During the 1800s the light of liberty was a brighter tradition. However; nothing even close to laissez-faire economics exists while the state agents monopolize violence and finance. Both monopolies were secured with the Constitution and both monopolies were enforced with the suppression of the whiskey rebellion in 1794

http://earlyamerica.com/earlyamerica/milestones/whiskey/text.html

These books describe the early history story from a reasonable perspective:

Shays’s Rebellion: The American Revolution’s Final Battle by Leonard L. Richards

46 Pages: Thomas Paine – Common Sense and the turning point to Independence by Scott Liell

The Whiskey Rebellion: Frontier Epilogue to the American Revolution by Thomas P. Slaughter

1776 by David McCullough

History of the Lost State of Franklin by Samuel Williams

The Friends of Liberty lost the early battles with the signing of the Constitution. Nationalism became statism. Capitalism, as a form of voluntary social structure, was confounded by government becoming fascism. The bill of rights, rather than a victory, opened the ideal of Law as a standard rule of law into a living document subject to interpretation; of the worst kind – a pile of crap sprinkled with perfume.

Lysander Spooner’s No Treason exposes the true purpose of the Constitution rather well.

What is most alarming to me concerns that mid 1800 period when Warren exposed the folly in real practical terms and proved the validity of Equitable Commerce. Had the friends of liberty, during that time, been ignited by Warren’s work, then, a fashionable acceptance could have gained the same type of critical mass inspired by Paine’s Common Sense. It may not be merely coincidental that the not so Civil War broke out during that time frame.

I’m on the edge of my seat reading the contents found in the link; looking for the ‘how we can change it’ part.

“Collaboration, not competition, is what leads to effective harmonization.”

Collaboration and competition is what leads to effective harmonization. Free competition welcomes everyone into voluntary competition to effectively find the best at doing what they can do best. The only way to eliminate competition is to force people to not compete. These social relationships are clearly spelled out and proven in practical application by Warren and further explained by Andrews.

“There is no adequate theory of democracy at present, although there is much to be learned from history and from theory.”

More contradiction above

There is not only an adequate theory of democracy at present, it exist in reality on the internet. The internet is equitable commerce in practice. History in the form of Warren’s science (not just theory and hypothesis but proven science) predicts the current forms that now exist on the net like Open Source currency:

I really wouldn't bother about taxation - its not a working class issue - that's been known since Adam Smith pointed out the burden of tax cannot fall on the waged/salaried class - we just pass that burden back onto our employers...

I really wouldn't bother about wages and salaries since those words are part of the whole involuntary part of the involuntary tax thing.

If a tax can be defined as a flow of resources or value from the individual to another individual or distributed toward many individuals at a rate above equity or below equity, then, a tax can be a charitable contribution, an individual’s sense of social obligation fulfilled, robbery, debt, etc. The involuntary part separates the motivations behind the tax into two obvious categories. Does the person promoting the tax wish to be generous or despotic? Equity is no tax whatsoever.

If banks compete equitably then credit can no longer command high costs. Taxes realized through enforced control of credit vanish. Competition in the credit market weeds out those who charge fees well over costs. Eventually the cost of credit becomes a function of prosperity. With an overall increase in prosperity the choices between saving for a rainy day and spending for current needs changes into investment or crediting toward many possible expected future improvements. Prosperity changes the whole calculation from the lesser of two evils to the greater of many goods.

Why on earth would a person continue enforcing involuntary servitude when the results of doing so obviously destroy prosperity? The motive behind the ideal is not prosperity. The motive is the fear of being less prosperous. The motive is to gain at another’s expense. It is a race to the bottom in so many ways. The involuntary part simply identifies the motive. People can’t be expected to tell the truth directly when they are motivated by greed.

Bill, there are a couple of catches with what you wrote. First, the burden of tax only flows back from workers to employers in equilibrium; in the short term - which matters to people living from week to week - changes hit workers. Second, workers aren't the whole bottom of the heap; that also includes the unemployed, dispossessed, broken men, etc. Taxes can shove more people out of the employed group, which doesn't show in looking at average wages. Joe, can I respectfully suggest a little more editing for brevity and ease of reading?

your statement on the harmonizing effects of competition is very well put.

Bill,

Adam Smith's position on taxes may apply in a free market, but in a cartelized market large corporations can pass costs (including taxes) on to the consumer. And the power to externalize costs through the state's taxing and spending powers is key to the existence of large-scale corporate capitalism.

Respectfully, you are not the first to offer welcome advice. The fact is that I try very hard to be as precise and concise as I possibly can. For example: precise alone doesn’t quite work; concise adds the necessary communication.

If it could be realized that home electric generation will manage to create economic independence than one such plan of attack could be made real in the following manner:

City municipalities could offer a welcome and voluntary investment portfolio. Contributors pay a voluntary tax investment to purchase a spot on the list. The list contains the names of contributors and the amount of each contribution. Larger contributions move an individual up the list. The largest contributor is on the top of the list.

The municipality advertises and seeks from potential producers a product having specific design capabilities. The product utilizes solar panels to convert the energy from the sun into electric energy. The product utilizes a wind turbine to convert the power of moving air into electric power. The product stores electric energy in batteries and or the product converts excess electric energy into hydrogen. The product stores hydrogen into a tank which can be dispensed into hydrogen powered appliances and vehicles.

The product will be designed to produce at least twice the power required to power the house and two cars based upon an average demand. The product can drop into a specific sized location having specific dimensions subject to availability and current technology.

Subscribers who receive the product first are the first ones to eliminate their energy bills so long as the unit continues to generate enough energy to run the house and the two cars.

Subscribers who receive the product first begin to pay off the remaining cost of their unit. Once they pay off the unit, then, all the excess energy produced and sold back to the electric company is credited to the owner of the unit.

While the mortgage on the unit remains un-paid, then, the excess power generated by that unit is credited to the municipality account for the purchase of new units and municipal insurance to be used to fight legal battles concerning the tax credit status of independent home electric generation.

Municipalities may find reason and cause to combine interests with other municipalities in the effort to maintain legalized independent home electric generation credit. Oil, nuclear, and other power companies may lobby to defeat the independent home electric generation credit union.

As the snow ball rolls down hill it can gain mass and velocity. A person who is way down on the list may see his neighbor who already has a home unit. The neighbor may be reaping the rewards of independent home power generation. The person low on the list may wish to contribute more and move his or her name up on the list.

As more neighbors receive their units and begin generating more power, then, the municipal bank account grows. Total power grows. Oil becomes less valuable. Nuclear power becomes less valuable. More units are made. Unit costs diminish. Development capital increases. Design efficiency increases. The independent home energy generation market creates jobs. The demand for hydrogen powered cars and appliances increase. The hydrogen powered car and appliance market gains momentum.

More people receive their units.

More renewable energy is made.

Total available energy increases. Energy costs lower. All the costs associate with producing things with high cost energy lower.

It is perhaps unfortunate that I posted drafts of chapters while I was writing: they don't give a fair picture of the final product. I find myself in agreement with much of what you folks have been saying in these comments.

In addition, the book needs to be read in sequence. The later chapters only make sense after layers of the matrix have been removed by earlier chapters.